"My Stories" questions (clarification count/list clearing?)

Questions about how the front page "My Stories" drop-down works: I seldom see a "new stories since your last visit" count there, so no associated links in the drop-down, even when I know that there are articles that I've not read.

Speculation: Could that be because I frequent the forum, almost always starting with My Threads, and my browser renders the "Latest stories" block at the bottom, before I go to the front page or to an article? Does viewing that block somehow clear "the user has 'seen' this" flags or something? It might be considered a similar function to the FP drop-down, but I'm not sure if you have it set up that way, or if you intend that behavior.

One might argue that those flags, no matter how they're handled, shouldn't be cleared until you actually click-through to an article, regardless of the entry point; could be the FP, the FP drop-down, the block at the bottom of a forum page, an RSS reader, etc. I won't argue one way or another, just wondering if the behavior is as you intend.

Each page on the main site has a JS variable with the total number of published posts, ars.TOTAL

We have a 10 minute expiring cookie called session_seen_posts. If the cookie doesn't exist we set it to the value of ars.TOTAL

When the page loads we compare your session_seen_posts cookie with ars.TOTAL to get the number of new posts

We also do some magic with post IDs to subtract any new posts you may have already visited from the count

So yes, if the Latest Stories is updating your session_seen_posts count it would always display 0. I probably didn't need to explain this in such detail, but it's nice to have it written down somewhere for explaining purposes.

I'll take a look at fixing this so the count is actually useful if you browse the forums.

Ahhh. I though My Stories was a location to quick reference favorite articles.

I just spent some time looking for a way to mark something as "My Story". I don't really take full advantage of my subscription and I keep finding articles I want to reference later. I guess to do what I want, I need to actually go into the related forum topic, scroll to the bottom of the thread (which is often lengthy) and set a bookmark there. then to reference the stories later, I just need to go to my bookmarks in the forum.

If there is an easier way to "save" my stories for later reference, let me know.

Ahhh. I though My Stories was a location to quick reference favorite articles.

I just spent some time looking for a way to mark something as "My Story". I don't really take full advantage of my subscription and I keep finding articles I want to reference later. I guess to do what I want, I need to actually go into the related forum topic, scroll to the bottom of the thread (which is often lengthy) and set a bookmark there. then to reference the stories later, I just need to go to my bookmarks in the forum.

If there is an easier way to "save" my stories for later reference, let me know.

Thanks!

Right now I can't think of a good way to do this, but it sounds like an interesting feature. Have you considered using regular browser bookmarks? A lot of browsers sync them across devices these days.

Right now I can't think of a good way to do this, but it sounds like an interesting feature. Have you considered using regular browser bookmarks? A lot of browsers sync them across devices these days.

Yeah I have. This ended up being more an exercise to understand the purpose of My Stories. I like the cross browser bookmark support, but for some reason I don't like sharing my work and personal bookmarks (No, not for any kinky reasons! ) It is usually my kids polluting my bookmarks at home and I haven't quite got them to use their own folders.

Anyway, what is the purpose of My Stories then if not for tracking my favorites?

Right now I can't think of a good way to do this, but it sounds like an interesting feature. Have you considered using regular browser bookmarks? A lot of browsers sync them across devices these days.

Yeah I have. This ended up being more an exercise to understand the purpose of My Stories. I like the cross browser bookmark support, but for some reason I don't like sharing my work and personal bookmarks (No, not for any kinky reasons! ) It is usually my kids polluting my bookmarks at home and I haven't quite got them to use their own folders.

Anyway, what is the purpose of My Stories then if not for tracking my favorites?

In the left column it lists stories that are new since your last visit. The middle column has recommendations based on other articles you've read. And the right column contains recent comment threads you have participated in.